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The Sea & Cake are set to release their new album 'Runner' on September 17th.

Tortoise are a slow beast. The Chicago collective are currently on down time, completing a handful of shows this summer then retreating to their base. Thankfully, the band are engaging in a number of side projects. The Sea & Cake are loosely attached to Tortoise, containing a few similar members but some extremely different ideas.

New album 'Runner' drops on September 17th. Recorded and mixed by John McEntire - hence the Tortoise connection - the material seemingly finds The Sea & Cake at their most accessible.

Here's 'Harps'.

Singer Sam Prekop offered the following statement:

"Normally I would ignore past efforts when writing something new, but this felt different, The Moonlight Butterfly was ripe for expansion. Keeping the butterfly in mind focused a direction and provided a good jumping off point. Between The Moonlight Butterfly and Runner, I wrote and recorded a soundtrack for a film called Pavilion. It was absolutely wonderful for a while not to know what I was doing, but working still, scrambling with purpose. I truly felt free to try almost anything. in completing a picture with sound, trying to record a nuance, the particulars became huge - to render a space, describe a time, follow a spell. Reaching in this direction has definitely informed the new record".

"I was interested in writing songs that started not with guitar but with synthesizer/sequencer ideas. The modular synth parts didn’t always make it through to the final recordings, but the influence is still there. On “Harps” for instance, that melody and structure could not have happened if I hadn’t played off the sequencer right at the beginning. Having the pieces start in my home studio, I became quite cavalier with them, painting with a new fat sloppy brush. The songs were feeling pleasantly out of control and I was hearing music unlike other material I had come up with before".

"The Sea and Cake worked remotely for quite a while on Runner. As a result, what the band brought was more reactionary, impulsive, since the foundation was already there. The pieces seemed able to absorb a new kind of risk taking. It was fascinating to hand over almost complete works and have the other members of the band have at it, rip up, reconfigure, reconsider. Just when I felt I couldn’t go further on a song, someone in the band would change it forever. I firmly believe in taking cues and direction as the material evolves. I’m never one to impose preconceptions on a record and feel the most interesting work is found, rather than predetermined."

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'Runner' is set to be released on September 17th - that's the cover art, yonder.